Whether you’re house hunting, building new, or simply daydreaming, you likely have a mental list of home features you love or hope to find in your next house. Here we share seven favorite features based on what we’ve learned from living in and renovating multiple homes, working on new builds with a local builder, and renovating two beach houses. We discuss favored ceiling heights, where we avoid a fully open concept, and two features we wish our home had but likely never will. We also explain a new approach to holiday decorating that kept our simplified home aesthetic intact while still feeling festive and saving money. Curiously, science weighs in on when to start holiday decorating—and the findings surprised us.
You can download this episode from Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, and Spotify—or listen to it in the embedded player below. Note: If you’re reading in a feed reader, you may need to click through to the post to view the player.
What’s New
- We’re simplifying holiday decorating this year so it feels festive without adding clutter. A full blog post with photos and details is coming soon.
- Sherry picked up two mercury glass trees: a 12.5″ and an 8.5″—the larger one is shown below.
- Last year we tried to rein in holiday decorations to avoid excess. You can hear how that experiment went in Episode #75.
- For recent conversations on simplifying decor, see Episode #111 and Episode #116, the latter featuring Myquillyn Smith and her book Cozy Minimalist Home, which we reference often.
- A recent article summarizes studies about holiday decorating and why people who decorate earlier report more happiness.
- We posted a Black Friday deals roundup last year and linked the items we bought for the duplex and personal gifts. Not all items remain discounted, but some deals held up:
- Whirlpool Top Freezer Refrigerator
- Whirlpool Slide-In Electric Range
- Maytag Front-Loading Washer
- Maytag Front-Loading Dryer
- Nest Thermostat E
- Apple Watch Series 3 with Cellular
Listener Question
- Below are visual examples of the features we’d prioritize when looking for a new home, whether buying or building.
- This is the beach house living room downstairs with 9-foot ceilings.
- Upstairs ceilings in that house are 8 feet; you can view more before-and-after photos of the downstairs in our project round-up.
- We used a before photo of the duplex to show how a sloped ceiling over stairs can create a tunnel-like effect. Raising the ceiling and moving the wall at the top of the stairs made the stairwell feel far more open and spacious.
- The renovated stair area now feels much larger—still a few finishing touches left, like painting the risers.
- Open-concept living spaces can be beautiful but sometimes challenging to decorate, especially when living room, kitchen, and breakfast nook flow together. We learned this while furnishing our showhouse.
- We opted for a cased opening between our kitchen and living room instead of a completely open plan. That slight separation helped define each space and gave us room to build wrap-around bookcases for storage and display.
- Maximizing natural light brightens rooms. Sidelights around our front door let sunlight stream into the entry; if sidelights aren’t possible, a half-lite door with glass on the top half is a great alternative.
- We converted part of our kitchen into a functional mini mudroom. We also explored adding a separate, proper mudroom during kitchen layout planning.
- We prefer an upstairs laundry room for convenience; we discuss this in Episode #105.
- For privacy and usability, we added a water closet in the showhouse so the toilet has its own door—something we were convinced to include and are glad we did. More finished photos and details are available in the showhouse room post.
- We also designed a jack-and-jill bathroom in the showhouse with a green vanity in the shared vanity area and a separate door leading to the toilet, shower, and tub—useful for kids and families.
We’re Digging
- Our new furniture line is now live on Wayfair. Browse the collection or check our furniture launch post for photos and details.
- We installed more smart switches recently, including a three-way smart switch and single-pole models. We also use smart plugs for our Christmas trees; slim versions and smart power strips are options if outlet space is tight. None of these devices require a separate hub—they work via Wi‑Fi, and voice control can be added with an Echo or Google Home if desired.
- Read more about the smart home tech we use and how it integrates into daily life.
- For family movie night, we recommend Wreck-It Ralph 2: Ralph Breaks The Internet.
- For fun, we dug up a nostalgic mattress commercial and the Salute Your Shorts theme song from our NYC days—memories like those are why life is amusing sometimes.
If you want to revisit items we’ve recommended in past episodes, we maintain a master list of everything we’ve been digging, along with a Book Club page listing the books we’ve recommended.
Finally, a big thank you to The Citizenry for sponsoring this episode.
Thanks for listening!
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